Mom’s Advice Works for Twitter

Remember what Mom told you somewhere around the first awkward days of kindergarten, “to have a friend you have to be a friend?” Well little did Mom know that her words would ring true far from the playground, and well after you finished university. With mobile in hand and apps at the ready, let’s go make some friends!

How to Make Twitter Friends – Fast!

I have many Twitter accounts for my brands, and I have to be honest, at first I just didn’t know what to do with them. I thought if I tweeted, people would just follow me. That’s like saying if you show up at the party and drink, people will like you. Nooo – you have to make some conversation, and let people know you’re interested. Here’s what you do:

Follow people you are interested in (if the are nice, they will follow you back)

Favorite the tweets of others

Re-tweet like a bandit

Give someone an @Coolperson compliment

I complimented on of the world’s top 50 most re-tweeted Twitter users (before I knew he was so Twitter-famous) and let him know he was my new favorite Tweeter and I re-tweeted more of his stuff than anyone. Not only did he favorite and re-tweet me back, but I got about 20 new followers because of it.

The Rule on Twitter is Reciprocity

The best tweeters reciprocate your kindness by following you back, using your hashtags, and giving you RTs. This helps grow their network and yours. Like Mom would say, it’s great to be “in” with the popular crowd, so long as they are nice people. Be sure when some of these super-tweeters do something nice for you, that you do something nice back.

Back to the playground… If you were on the monkey bars and someone asked you to play and you ignored them, what would happen? They’d play with someone else. They would not likely ask you again. So, when you get those new follows, be sure to follow them back. Be sure to thank someone for a ret-weet or a favorite. Play nice! Soon you will have lots of friends.